David Chalmer's view of consciousness: naturalistic dualism

Consciousness. It's what we are and know, since reality doesn't exist for us if we can't experience it. Yet it's also the most mysterious thing in the cosmos.

So mysterious, it can't really be called a "thing." Consciousness is utterly subjective. But without consciousness we wouldn't be aware of objective reality. So go figure...

David Chalmers has done a lot of figuring on this subject. He's an Australian philosopher who specializes in the philosophy of mind/consciousness. I've had his book, "The Conscious Mind," sitting unread on my bookshelf for over a decade.

A few days ago I picked it up, stimulated by a mention in another book of how Chalmers doesn't see consciousness capable of being explained by materialism. As soon as I started reading it I realized why it had remained unread for so long: it's freaking dense.

Also, freaking interesting.

And the latter freakiness overwhelmed the former for me. So I've happily made my way through the first four chapters, even proudly skimming the sections in this Oxford University Press book marked with an asterisk -- a "philosophically technical" warning.

Chalmers obviously is brilliant (Rhodes Scholar, bachelor's degree in mathematics and computer science, doctorate in philosophy, etc. etc.). His writing is crisp and clear, though heavily intellectual. Not surprising, since I believe "The Conscious Mind" is based on his doctoral thesis.

His approach to consciousness appeals to me. I've been interested in mysticism and meditation for about forty years. I also admire science, and logically rigorous ways of looking upon reality.

Chalmers strikes a pleasing philosophical middle ground for people like me who are attracted to the mystery of consciousness, yet don't want to embrace unprovable faith-based religious, mystical, spiritual, or New Age'y dogmas.

He says that "a being is conscious if there is something it is like to be that being." It's the subjective side of reality. (Almost the same as "awareness," though awareness has more of a functional connotation, since being aware allows us to do stuff -- including reporting what we're aware of.)

Over and over, Chalmers emphasizes the difference between explaining how consciousness works in the brain and what consciousness is. Thus there is an "easy," though still difficult, problem of consciousness, and the "hard" problem.

How does the brain process environmental stimulation? How does it integrate information? How do we produce reports on internal states? These are important questions, but to answer them is not to solve the hard problem: Why is all this processing accompanied by an experienced inner life?

Zombies are frequently used by philosophers to explore this question. These aren't the stumbling creatures dressed in rags who scare us in horror movies. They're theoretical beings who are identical to us in every fashion, except they lack inner experience.

Every atom of their bodies is just like ours. They act just like us. They're objectively indistinguishable from us. But a zombie lacks consciousness.

How, then, is it possible to say that consciousness is explainable in a materialistic fashion if a zombie is 100% physically and behaviorally identical to a human being, yet lacks an experience of being a zombie, that something it is like Chambers spoke of above?

At first I had trouble getting my mind around this zombie thought experiment. Wouldn't consciousness be necessary to understand that the zombies being studied lacked consciousness? So there couldn't be a complete zombie world, right?

With more reading I began to grasp the philosophical difference between a conceivable reality and a possible reality. Zombies who are just like us but lack conscious experience are conceivable, though almost certainly not possible.

Along the same line, Chalmers talks about how God (hypothetically, obviously) could have created the universe just as it is, yet without consciousness.

So in a much more sophisticated way than I'm relating here, he presents a persuasive argument that consciousness isn't produced by materiality or an integral aspect of it. It is an extra that "God" would have had to add-on in addition to physical matter/energy.

No explanation given wholly in physical terms can ever account for the emergence of conscious experience.

...It will ultimately be given in terms of the structural and dynamical properties of physical processes, and no matter how sophisticated such an account is, it will yield only more structure and dynamics. While this is enough to handle most natural phenomena, the problem of consciousness goes beyond any problem about the explanation of structure and function, so a new sort of explanation is needed.

David Chalmers doesn't claim to have a final answer to the problem of consciousness, just some reasonable guidelines for how to approach it.

His basic thesis is "naturalistic dualism." By dualism, Chalmers means there are both physical and nonphysical features of the world, with consciousness being nonphysical. Naturalistic, though, means nonphysical can't be equated with supernatural, spiritual, mystical, or such.

The arguments do not lead us to a dualism such as that of Descartes, with a separate realm of mental substance that exerts its own influence on physical processes. The best evidence of contemporary science tells us that the physical world is more or less causally closed: for every physical event, there is a physical sufficient cause. If so, there is no room for a mental "ghost in the machine" to do any extra causal work.

I need to finish "The Conscious Mind" to learn more about what consciousness might be, if not physical. I do know that Chalmers posits that consciousness could be a fundamental aspect of reality, not reducible to anything else, just as "electric charge" is in physics.

(See this video interview with Chalmers; click on "physical theory" won't do the job to go to the relevant section.)

Chalmers suggests that there are deeper laws of nature, or principles, which connect physical processes to experience. Information might play a key role here. Thus there is more to consciousness than physical goings-on in the brain, but this "more" is natural, not supernatural.

It is psychophysical.

Like the fundamental laws of physics, psychophysical laws are eternal, having existed since the beginning of time. It may be that in the early stages of the universe there was nothing that satisfied the physical antecedents of the laws, and so no consciousness, although this depends on the nature of the laws.

In any case, as the universe developed, it came about that certain physical systems evolved that satisfied the relevant conditions. When these systems came into existence, conscious experience automatically accompanied them by virtue of the laws in question. Given that psychophysical laws exist and are timeless, as naturalistic dualism holds, the evolution of consciousness poses no special problem.

Again, these laws would tell us how experience arises from physical processes. Chalmers doesn't say that consciousness exists apart from material atoms and energy, which for humans is the brain. Rather, there is a lawful relationship between physical processes and conscious experience.

Though this might sound uninspiring to some people attracted to mysticism and meditation (such as me), Chalmers leaves open the possibility that "pure consciousness" of some sort could be experienced by us humans.

(Click on "pure contentless consciousness" in the above-mentioned video index.)

Here's a ten minute You Tube video which provides a good overview of Chalmer's philosophical take on consciousness. A Scientific American piece byChalmers also is well worth reading.
Download Scientific American Chalmers article

   

Comments

[Roger]

"......Chalmers leaves open the possibility that "pure consciousness" of some sort could be experienced by us humans."

---The 'pure' consciousness of some sort could be experienced by what? What would be this 'experience' obtaining or generating
something or non-something?

---Does this experiencing 'something/non-something' need some sort of stimulation or activity to engage in the act of experiencing?

Ok, ok, so go and finish the book, then tell me.

[david lane]

John Searle, UC Berkeley, wrote what I think is a pretty spot-on (even if a bit acerbic) critique of Chalmer's book several years ago. Here is an exchange between both of them in the New York Review of Books. Ironically, I found that Searle seemed to understand Chalmers' own view better than Chalmers himself!

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1997/may/15/consciousness-and-the-philosophers-an-exchange/

[Blogger Brian]

David, thanks for the link. I purposely didn't read any reviews or critiques of Chalmer's book before I wrote this first post about it, because I wanted to stick with my reaction to the book, not someone else's.

After reading the first page of the NY TImes interchange between Chalmers and Searle, I still lean toward Chalmer's side. I think Searle is misinterpreting Chalmers basic premise: experience is something different from neurological goings-on in the brain.

Those goings-on are highly, perhaps perfectly, correlated with experience. But what Chalmers calls "phenomenological" and "psychological" understandings are in different philosophical and epistemic worlds.

As he says in the book, this comes down to an intuitive understanding, or problem in need of explanation. Maybe Searle has an alternative way of experiencing life. I resonate with what Chalmers is getting at, but not everybody will.

You can put me in a brain scanner and analyze my neurology as much as you want. That still doesn't add up to my conscious experience. I think Chalmers argues this point well. Last night and this morning I read a few more chapters in the book, and remain impressed with it.

Haven't gotten to the "panpsychism" part. I suspect that Searle is overstating Chalmers mystical propensities, because so far he writes and thinks like a hardheaded scientifically minded philosopher.

[david lane]

Actually Searle has long championed the notion that computational models cannot explain consciousness and that merely saying that the brain is the origination of self-reflective awareness is not sufficient to robustly understand the phenomenon. Searle, as you know, is famous for his Chinese Room thought analogy, which in his updated style he translates as "you cannot understand first person experiences by third person descriptions."

So, on this score, I actually think Searle is basically symapthetic to what Chalmers is getting at (the "hard problem"--qualia), except that Searle doesn't feel that Chalmers' approach (or Roger Penrose's for that matter) really advances the cause.

In any case, there is no getting around the fact that Chalmers book has had a very frutiful life and caused much discussion on the issue.

Now it is really cold here and I have to turn the thermostat up to beyond 70.... wait, is my thermostat conscious? Do I have a right to do that?

Ah, Chalmers has taken over my brain (jk).

[Roger]

"Actually Searle has long championed the notion that computational models cannot explain consciousness and that merely saying that the brain is the origination of self-reflective awareness is not sufficient to robustly understand the phenomenon."

---Then, what would explain or robustly bring understanding to the phenomenon?

[David lane]

More neuroscience and a lot of patience

[George]

Douglas Hofstadter deftly addresses Chalmers in chapter 22 of "I Am a Strange Loop".

I like Hofstadter's example of "liphosophers": people who believe in the nonphysical quality called Leafpilishness. When a liphosopher comes across a pile of leaves, he exclaims (as Hofstadter imagines):

"Aha! So there's another one of those rare entities imbued with one dollop of Leafpilishness, that mystical, nonphysical, other-worldly, but very real aura that doesn't ever attach itself to haystacks, reams of paper, or portions of French fries, but only to piles of leaves! If it weren't for Leafpilishness, a leaf pile would be nothing but a motley heap of tree debris, but thanks to Leafpilishness, all such motley heaps become Leafpilish!"

There are also semantic problems and contradictions. Dave Chalmers says his zombie copy believes he isn't a zombie, and believes so sincerely. But isn't believing something sincerely a kind of feeling?

And when philosophers describe these zombies, they use words like "drone" when imagining how they would speak, as if they would sound like our computer dictation programs. Or they imagine zombies playing baseball with solemn expressions. But it was just agreed that that our zombie counterparts are utterly indistinguishable from us, the only difference being some intangible nonphysical quality (like "Leafpilishness"). There's a funny double-standard there.

Though "naturalistic dualism" seems like a catchy term, what would distinguish it from any other kind of dualism? Surely no experiment could do so. I just don't see this as significantly different than old-fashioned dualism, or some sophisticated woo woo, or at best another Entity of the Gaps.

[Blogger Brian]

George, your description of zombies isn't how Chalmers describes them philosophically. They aren't drones, or solemn, or different in any fashion from us human beings. So there is no double-standard as you describe it.

What Chalmers is pointing to -- and this took me a while to grasp after I started reading his book -- is that conscious experience is something different from brain states. However, some people don't see that there is a difference.

But our first person subjectivity is clearly different from third person objectivity. How neurological goings-on relate to conscious experience is the big mystery, the hard problem. Chalmers doesn't claim to have solved it. However, zombie thought experiments and the like are useful for demonstrating that the hard problem actually exists.

We can imagine someone being exactly like us, aside from not having an experience of the world. What constitutes that "aside" is the main subject matter of Chalmer's book.

[Georoge]

Brian, my description of zombies is that they are "utterly indistinguishable from us". I am quite sure I am using Chalmers' model here.

You've misread my comment. My point was that I've caught philosophers (sorry I can't remember where) using non-emotive words like "drone" to describe these zombies while _also_ saying they are utterly indistinguishable from us. That slip-up is revealing. I don't remember if Chalmers was guilty but I think he was (sorry no reference at hand).

In fact I cannot imagine a zombie version of me who is reacting, laughing, crying, running, jumping, and loving all exactly like me in appearance while not possessing the same internality which produces those behaviors.

I am quite familiar with these zombie experiments and I find them all to be square circles. Hofstadter describes it well--it comes down to some magic goo which finds minds to glom onto--and only some kinds of minds but not others. Leafpileishness with a capital L.

If you really want to understand where I'm coming from then see if you can get your hands on chapter 22 from Hofstadter's book.

[Georgy Porgy]

I see another George on here - better change my name to Georgy Porgy.

I wonder if philosophy of mind is the correct approach in trying to explain subjective consciousness. Science, or neuroscience, precedes from the basis that consciousness has emerged from matter. However, Chalmers and certain philosophies of mind, seems to suggest an additional element to consciousness, but i am not sure why this is needed.

Even the simplest lifeforms, single cells, are designed to sense (perceive) their environment. Tho cells are not thought of as being 'conscious', especially from our anthropormorphic perspective, is consciousness not simply an awareness of our environment?

Thus, perhaps each cell is conscious in its own limited way. It senses and reacts to its environment subjectively, but not uniquely. Other cells of the same type, behave in the same limited way.

Consciousness, as understood from a human perspective, seems to imply something more - not only free will but a subjective experience of colours, tastes, etc. Of a 'self' that experiences the environment.

But just as cells have evolved into more complex organisms, so to are more complex organisms ultimately made of simpler cells.

Humans are such a complex organism, and it follows that the most successful organisms are likely to be those that percieve their environment best. An organism that is able to have a sense of self in relation to its environment would clearly not only be advantageous but necessary. Animals do this to varied degrees, but surely it is just a matter of degree that allows for the extended awareness of time and space, that have evolved in the human animal.

[Roger]

What is a brain state(s)?

Could a particular conscious experience be a particular brain state? If not, and that's ok, then what would be the 'hinted at' or the source of a particular 'conscious' experience?

I'm not trying to make a big deal regarding any of this. The topic is just very interesting.

[Blogger Brian]

George, I've read "I am a Strange Loop" and enjoyed it a lot. I'll take another look at Chapter 22. Well, after writing that, I just did -- quickly.

I can understand Hofstadter's objection to Chalmer's position. But I think it comes down to an intuition that Chalmers talks about. Either someone sees a problem with experience/consciousness, or they don't. I do, along with Chalmers, so naturally I resonate with his book.

I'll probably write more about zombies in a post later today, so won't duplicate those thoughts here.

My basic notion is this: I don't know the answer to what consciousness is all about. Nobody does. I just enjoy the way Chalmers raises questions, and systematically explores some plausible answers in a fashion completely compatible with science.

[jon weiss]

Brian wrote: "is that conscious experience is something different from brain states."

I am confused. If you take away the physical brain, does consciousness remain? Again, we would have to believe that there existed a trans-brainial whoof of something that existed independent of the workings of the brain rather than generated by those workings.

[Blogger Brian]

jon, Chalmers is clear about this: the brain is necessary for consciousness to arise in humans. His view of consciousness is quite subtle. In many ways Chalmers sounds like a materialist neuroscientist, because he sees the physical and the phenomenal as intimately (perhaps exactly) correlated.

Meaning, when goings-on inside the brain result in a perception, emotion, thought, or whatever, we have a subjective phenomenal experience that corresponds to the objective neurological functioning.

Still, Chalmers holds that consciousness is non-material, though natural. It's a nuanced argument, which I can't do justice to, even though I've read most of his book. He strikes a middle ground between extreme materialism and extreme idealism, giving some good arguments for why this makes sense.

[MinkusPinkus]

Some random musings...

(1) You are like a wave on the ocean -- you form from the action of other waves, you have a distinct identity for a while, and then you contribute to other waves as you fade away and eventually disappear, returning all of your water to the ocean...

(2) I'm a big fan of Chalmers, mostly because he doesn't jump to conclusions.

(3) In the Chalmers interview linked in this post, Chalmers mentions of a consciousness meter (specifically the lack thereof). But consciousness meters do exist -- I can detect my own consciousness, and therefore I'm a consciousness meter, at least for my own consciousness. Perhaps that is as far as the technology might be able to go.

(4) In additional to consciousness meter technology, we also have the technology *right here in physical reality* to create beings with consciousness. This technology is called "sex". As far as we know, it involves some physical processes. If we can replicate these physical processes in the lab (OK, OK, I know some of you have already replicated these processes in a lab... ha ha) then we can create artificial consciousness.

(5) As far as we know, the process for creating a conscious being uses conscious beings as ingredients, sort of like waves creating waves on the ocean. (Yeah, yeah, I know that wind, rocks, earthquakes, etc., also create waves, so sue me!)